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Poland: UN climate talks go nowhere -- yet again

By Chris Williams

November 22, 2013 -- Climate & Capitalism -- “The smell of inaction” is how Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth
Mozambique’s international program director for climate justice and
energy, summed up the atmosphere inside the giant Narodowy Stadium after
the first week of the latest round of international climate
negotiations, Conference of the Parties, otherwise known as COP 19,
taking place November 11-22, 2013, in Warsaw.

Given that this is the 19th consecutive year of annual negotiations
and with a meaningful global treaty more distant now than it was almost
two decades ago, Bhatnagar’s olfactory deduction seems likely to be
highly accurate.

As the pervasive smell of inaction seeped like a suffocating gas
throughout the inside of the conference, outside, the choking effects of
coal smoke waft from all corners of a country that obtains 90 per cent
of its electricity from coal and whose government has pledged to keep it
that way until 2060.

As if to emphasise the point, just on the other side of the banks of
the Vistula River, a stone’s throw from the international climate
negotiations, another conference is being held at the Ministry of
the Economy. Intent on sending a none-too-subtle message to government
negotiators at COP 19, coal industry executives have gathered at the
International Coal and Climate Conference, November 18-19, to discuss
the future of coal in light of climate change.

If this were a rational system set up to benefit humanity, one might
think that, as coal burning releases more carbon than other fossil fuels
in addition to small particulates that infiltrate and cause chronic
lung damage as well as other toxic chemicals that increase the risk of
cancer and cause acid rain -- coal industry leaders might be discussing
how to shift their investments, to phase out coal and transition to
alternative energy production methods that don’t rely on burning such a
noxious substance.

Clean coal?

In reality, the conference was put on for precisely the opposite
reasons. Attendees, with the blessing of the Polish government, were
there to argue for the future of “clean coal”. This technology is known
as carbon capture and storage (CCS). And although it seeks to trap and
bury carbon emissions from coal plants, it doesn’t exist in any
meaningful commercial form. Even some supporters harbor increasing
doubts that it ever will be made to work on the scale necessary. But,
nevertheless, it is being touted as the way to “safely” continue burning
coal.

Even the head of the delegation of one of the most conservative and
pro-business environmental NGOs at the conference, Tasneem Essop of the
World Wildlife Fund, commented,

For the coal industry to come to Warsaw at a time when
we are dealing with these serious issues and to say they have a future
and try to pretend they are making a contribution is a bit provocative.

The insanity of burning more coal to “clean it up” was underscored at
the protests of climate justice activists outside the opening day of
the coal conference on November 18.

Bringing solidarity greetings, sadness and anger from the people of the Philippines and the rest of the Global South demanding climate justice, Gerry
Arances, national coordinator of the Philippines Movement for Climate
Justice, spoke at the protest outside the coal conference:

There is no such thing as clean coal. Coal kills.
Friends, colleagues, before Typhoon Haiyan, or what we call Typhoon
Yolanda disaster in the Philippines, coal slowly, painfully is killing
my brothers and sisters in Mindanao, in the Visayas [Islands], in
Lausan, with all the coal mining and coal power plant projects in my
country. They are selling ‘clean coal’ in my country -- and we say to
them, this is a big lie. Because, in so many places, they are destroying
our forests; they are destroying our mountains; they are destroying our
watersheds.

A giant pair of inflatable lungs were hoisted into the air by
protesters to represent how coal makes the air we breathe a toxic soup
of tiny particles that clogs up the lungs and causes respiratory
ailments, exacerbates asthma and leads to early death for hundreds of
thousands of people around the world.

As an example of the health effects of coal, the conservative
American Economic Review published an economics paper in 2011, analysing
the health impacts of coal in the United States. Its conclusion was
that the negative results of coal production actually outweigh the
economic benefits of burning it in power stations. In other words, if
one takes into account the loss of productivity because of illness and
the costs of medical treatment for people with impaired respiratory
systems from coal emissions, even discounting climate change impacts,
coal makes a net negative contribution to economic development.

Against the wishes of many of the environmental NGOs and climate
activists at COP 19, not to mention the demonstrators outside the coal
conference, Christina Figueres, the UN’s chief climate negotiator, went
to address the coal industry. While Figueres told coal leaders they had
to change and most coal had to stay in the ground, her seemingly
anti-coal message was completely contradicted by her remarks that the
industry had “the opportunity to be part of the worldwide climate
solution” by adopting different technologies, such as CCS and the
construction of high efficiency coal burning plants.

This is exactly what the coal industry lobbying group, the World Coal
Association, in conjunction with the Polish economics ministry, argued
in their Warsaw Communiqué, published in September 2013, as a
pre-emptive strike against the idea that their industry had no future in
a warming world. The communiqué argued for more funding and investment
for “high efficiency” coal projects and CCS technology to further spread
coal burning around the world, in exactly the kind of projects
criticised by Arances for the slow death of Filipinos.

The ethics-free entities otherwise known as Western banks have not
been shy about continuing to fund coal projects around the world.
According to a study released by BankTrack, Banking on Coal, just 20
banks have been responsible for almost three-quarters of the $113
billion given to support coal mining activities around the world between
2005 and mid-2013, representing a 400 per cent increase.

The biggest contributor was Citibank, closely followed by heavy
investments from Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and the large British
banks. Unsurprisingly, given the finances pumped into coal production,
there are 1200 new coal plants under construction around the world.

As the latest data from the UN illustrate, we now know only 20
per cent of the remaining fossil-fuel reserves can be burnt if humanity
is to stand any chance of remaining within the critical threshold of 2
degrees Celsius of warming. In spite of that fact, each of these coal
plants will have a life span of at least 40 to 50 years, thereby
promising the world the continuation of coal burning even as we approach
the 22nd century. No doubt the most recalcitrant states, such as the
United States, which has consistently argued against a global climate
emissions deal, were given confidence in their obstructionism by
Figueres herself.

When asked a month before COP 19 whether the new UN data, requiring a
strict carbon cap to leave most fossil reserves under the ground, would
underpin negotiations, Figueres responded absolutely not. “I don’t
think it’s possible… Politically it would be very difficult. I don’t
know who would hold the pen.” In other words, scientific reality should
be ignored in favour of political “reality” and the intransigence of
powerful states prepared to sacrifice island nations and people in the
developing world to the priorities of financial accumulation.

John Gummer, chair of the British government’s climate advisers
and former UK environment minister, who infamously forced his children
to eat beef before the TV cameras to reassure Britons of the safety of
British beef during the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease, was prompted to
remark that “calling coal a clean solution is like characterising sex
trafficking as marriage guidance”.

Typhoon Haiyan

Although you wouldn’t know it from the invisibility of progress, the
COP 19 talks come in the wake of the enormous, and still unfolding,
tragedy of Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm in recorded history, with
gusts of wind clocked at 235 mph, whipping up waves 16 feet high and
burying the Philippines under a tempest of unprecedented ferocity. At
the opening of the talks, the Philippines’ top negotiator, Commissioner
Naderev Sano, made an emotional plea on behalf of his country for the
international community to “stop the madness” and come to its senses, by
taking urgent action to prevent further climate change:

It is the 19th COP, but we might as well stop counting,
because my country refuses to accept that a COP 30 or a COP 40 will be
needed to solve climate change. … Now, we find ourselves in a situation
where we have to ask ourselves -- can we ever attain the ultimate
objective of the convention? -- which is to prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system? By failing to meet
the objective of the convention, we may have ratified our own doom.

Sano is on hunger strike for the duration of the conference, along
with dozens of other attendees. They are standing in solidarity with the
tens of thousands of desperate Filipinos who are facing hunger, disease
and homelessness in many of the most seriously affected areas of the
Philippines.

Sano wants to increase the pressure on climate negotiators to broker a
meaningful deal. Such an outcome is highly unlikely however, as vested
corporate interests and their proposed solutions dominate the climate
talks. Like the waves of Haiyan, corporate power and the competing
priorities of nation states are drowning out the demands of people in
the global South for urgent and deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions and
increased funding for climate adaptation.

Corporate talks

Despite the very low bar set in previous rounds of negotiations,
there’s a reason that the outcome of COP 19 is likely to be the worst
yet: it’s the most business-friendly COP so far, with the smallest
participation from government ministers.

The conference walls are plastered with the corporate logos of
Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel and mining corporation, along
with BMW, Emirates Air, Ikea and Polish fossil fuel giants PGE and Lotos
Group. Astonishingly for a conference that is supposed to be about
reducing emissions from fossil fuels, it is being sponsored by the very
organisations whose business model relies on pumping out more. Such are
the dismal hopes for progress. Three in every 10 countries party to the
talks haven’t bothered to send ministers, ensuring those 60 countries
will be unable to authorise any commitment to a climate deal.

At the conference, an entire 130-page glossy brochure is devoted to
“Looking to the Future of Carbon Markets”, even though the European
Trading System is a shambles and the concept of carbon trading for
pollution has been condemned widely by climate justice groups throughout
the global South.

Rather than raising the level of ambition for deeper emissions cuts
and increased funding for developing countries to cope with climate
change and transition to alternative energies, countries in the global North,
responsible for the overwhelming majority of historical emissions to
date, are instead further lowering the scope of their commitments.

Climate denier Abbott applauded

Just prior to the talks, Canada, a country quickly on its way to
becoming a rogue petro-state for extreme energy extraction, gave up any
remaining pretense over where it stood with regard to doing anything
about climate change. In a formal statement from Paul Calandra,
parliamentary secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
Canada “applauded” the Australian government’s commitment to repealing a
carbon tax on the 300 largest polluters. The statement was quite
explicit in noting that the “Australian prime minister [Tony Abbott's] decision will
be noticed around the world and sends an important message”.

The Japanese government also has dialled back its climate commitments,
justifying the decision by referencing the ongoing nuclear catastrophe
at Fukushima. The Japanese people have used every opportunity since
March 2011 to demonstrate their anger against the irresponsibility of
nuclear corporation Tepco and their desire to keep all nuclear plants in
Japan closed for good, by generating electricity through alternative
means. By twisting their meaning, the Japanese government is using the
protests of its citizens to argue it can’t follow through on previous
commitments, even as it continues to try to find ways to restart the
reactors.

With developing countries arguing for greater financial assistance to
deal with the increasing costs of trying to survive extreme weather
events and mitigate future climate change, the United States already has
signaled its unhappiness with the way in which talks in Warsaw could
focus on financial support and “blame and liability”. The Global Climate
Fund, which rich countries, with much fanfare, previously had pledged
to finance to the tune of $100 billion per year by 2020, so far has seen
a dearth of actual money deposited.

In response to these announcements, Munjurul Hannan Khan,
representing the world’s 47 least affluent countries, made the obvious
point that the self-serving short-term outlook of developed countries
was illogical and ultimately would prove self-defeating, “They are
behaving irrationally and unacceptably. The way they are talking to the
most vulnerable countries is not acceptable. Today the poor are
suffering from climate change. But tomorrow the rich countries will be.
It starts with us, but it goes to them.”

This is a point not lost on people in the global North. Much is often made
in the media and by US politicians of Americans’ disinterest, if not
outright disbelief, in climate change. In contrast, however, proving yet
again that ordinary Americans are much more in touch with reality than
the US political class that purports to represent them, several recent
polls indicate that a full 70 per cent of Americans want something done
about climate change. Likewise, in Poland, where the government hides
behind the supposed indifference or rejection of action on climate
change, there is a similar groundswell of public opinion in favor of
greater action.

In data collected by the Polish market research company CEM Market
and Public Opinion Research Institute, 80 per cent of Poles believe
climate change is a serious problem and 63 per cent want their energy to
come from renewable sources. Similarly, a Greenpeace poll found that 73
per cent of Poles want more action to prevent climate change.

Change the system, not the climate

The backsliding of the governments of countries such as Canada, Japan
and Australia and the refusal of the United States to back an
international treaty, combined with almost two decades of failed
negotiations, set against a backdrop of escalating climatic dysfunction
and extreme weather events such as Typhoon Haiyan, led 750 climate
justice activists to board a train from Brussels to Warsaw for
demonstrations on November 16.

Over the course of the 18-hour train ride, a glimpse was offered of
the kind of positive alternative that exists, if people can build the
movement for climate justice more widely.

Each carriage was organised by different environmental and left-wing
groups, with two stewards appointed to each. While organisers had hoped
for 500 passengers, more than 750 rode the climate justice train to
Warsaw. Each carriage was adorned with banners, flags and posters
proclaiming the politics of different groups; even the toilet doors had
polite multilingual handmade signs detailing appropriate and considerate
usage. Nutritious food was provided and served from a food car taken
over and run by dedicated activists; drinks and food were served
throughout by Oxfam and a local organic brewery. All train announcements
were made in three languages, and a train carriage was set aside as a
“debate car.”

This proved entirely superfluous, because debates and discussions
raged the length and breadth of the train, long into the early hours of
the morning: about how to build the movement, what position to take on
different issues, what could be expected from the climate talks in
Warsaw and how the demonstrations might affect them. The hopeful,
energetic and tremendously inspiring atmosphere couldn’t have been more
different to the pall of futility enveloping the official COP 19 talks
at the stadium in Warsaw. The train ambience was multinational and
multicultural in the best sense of those terms, comradely and with a
vivacious spirit and energy that was infectious as people shared
thoughts, food and stories.

A mighty diversity of background, nationalities and types of people
were in evidence: from trade unionists to an anarchist medical doctor
from Switzerland, a Parisian research chemist on her first
demonstration, a contingent of more than 100 young people from COMAC,
the youth wing of the Workers Party of Belgium, and many others. As we
travelled across Belgium and Germany, we picked up more people at each
stop along the way.

The only negative came when exhausted activists were woken at 6:30 am
to the sound of more than 100 Polish police boarding the train with
dogs. Because Poland is now part of the European Union, there should be
no internal border controls between member countries. But in another
sign of the criminalisation of dissent and of the right to peaceful
protest, the train was kept for almost two hours at the border crossing
from Germany into Poland. Schengen, the European border controls, were
reinstituted November 8, specifically to antagonize and harass activists
traveling to protest COP 19 -- surely a legitimate right in a democratic
union of countries.

The train arrived late -- but in time for the demonstration against
the corporate priorities on display at COP 19 and the do-nothing antics
of the representatives of the major polluting countries. Train riders
poured out from the station in droves, ready to join thousands more
activists to march on Narodowy Stadium for climate and social justice.

One of the most popular call-and-response chants on the boisterous
Saturday demonstration made clear the internationalism, solidarity and
priorities of those involved: “The Philippines, Pakistan, New Orleans:
Change the system, not the climate.” That’s something worth fighting
for.

[Chris Williams, a frequent contributor to Climate & Capitalism, is the author of Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis(Haymarket,
2011). He is chair of the science department at Packer Collegiate
Institute and adjunct professor of chemistry and physical science at
Pace University. Copyright Truthout.org. Reprinted at Climate & Capitalism with permission.]